Non-stick chewing gum which can be washed off streets and degrades naturally in the environment has been developed by a team of British scientists.

The gum, which they tested on city streets and their CEO's daughter's hair, contains an ingredient that coats it with a thin film of water, making it easier to remove. Bristol University scientists created it in an attempt to rid the streets of unsightly mess and save councils the money they spend on removing it from pavements.

Councils in Britain spend £150m each year cleaning gum from the streets, with Westminster council alone spending £90,000 a year. A survey by Westminster found it took 17 weeks to clean chewing gum from Oxford Street in London, but within 10 days, cleaners counted 300,000 new pieces stuck to the street.

The Bristol team, led by Terence Cosgrove, stuck chewed gum in set places on the streets of Bristol and various towns in north Wales and returned later to record its fate. In all the tests, the non-stick gum washed away with rain or street cleaning within 24 hours, while standard gum remained stuck for the eight days of the experiment.

In a further test, the scientists - whose company, Revolymer, is a spinoff from their work with the university - pressed lumps of non-stick and standard chewing gum into the hair of the CEO's daughter, who consented because she was planning to have her hair cut. Professor Cosgrove said the non-stick gum was removed after several washes with shampoo, while the commercial brand had to be cut out.

What his team has developed is a polymer that can be mixed into chewing gum. Each molecular chain that makes up the polymer contains one end that repels water and another that attracts water. When the gum is chewed, the polymer attracts water in saliva, forming a thin film around it, which acts as a lubricant and prevents it from becoming sticky.

"With this gum, you always get a film of water around it, and that's one of the reasons it's easy to remove and in some cases doesn't stick at all," Prof Cosgrove said.

The scientists will present the research today at the British Association festival of science in York, and are in the process of applying for EU approval to use the polymer as an additive for chewing gum. They expect to gain permission in December.

Versions of the product, called Clean Gum, in lemon and mint flavours, could then be launched in 2008. The British chewing gum market, dominated by Wrigley's, is worth nearly £300m a year.

"Of all the things that end up on our streets, chewing gum is the hardest to shift," said Leith Penny, director of environment and leisure at Westminster council. "The problem with campaigns to stop people disposing of chewing gum irresponsibly is that they do nothing to stigmatise the behaviour. The campaigns that did - for drink-driving and dogs fouling the streets - worked very well."